


End of the Line

by jaldon



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Brainwashing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Implied/Referenced Torture, Past Character Death, Reunions, Winter Soldier AU, i promise this is more lighthearted than it seems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26607136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaldon/pseuds/jaldon
Summary: “Yasha… do you recognize me?”For a moment, Beau’s afraid that Yasha will say no. Or worse, that she’ll run. Beau’s afraid that the past year— more than that, even— will be for nothing and she’ll have to start all over again. Or, even worse than that, that Yasha will recognize her but won’t want to return with her. That they’ll have really lost her forever. But then Yasha speaks. “You are Beauregard.”*Yasha is missing. Beau & the Nein find her. A Winter Soldier AU.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Yasha, Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, The Mighty Nein & Yasha
Comments: 9
Kudos: 100





	End of the Line

**Author's Note:**

> quick note: this takes place after the ca:tws of this universe. yasha is the winter soldier.

Beau cases the apartment quickly, first checking it for people and then for explosives of any sort. She wanders through the main room (dusty), the attached kitchen (uncared for), the bedroom (messy, impersonal), and the bathroom (cold but functional). She finds none of either thing. 

All told, it’s a pretty good place, if dirty, cramped, and devoid of anything that might make it personal. It’s on the top floor of the building, with only one entrance. It has windows, fire escape access, and roof access. The building next door is close and short enough that a jump could be made if necessary. Hard to get into, easy to get out of. 

It’s the kind of place that Beau would have looked for.

It doesn’t feel like Yasha, though, and despite what Caleb said about having footage of her entering the building Beau isn’t entirely sure that he was correct. It’s very sparse— no flowers anywhere, her mind adds without her consent— and it feels both too impersonal and entirely too lived in for it to be Yasha’s. The carpet is dirty, covered in mysterious brown stains Beau hopes aren’t blood; the couch is sagging and the sad old TV is scratched; the sink is filled with unwashed dishes, no food disposal in it so a trash can is shoved underneath. 

Back in their best days, after Cobalt and saving Yasha from the cult that they apparently didn’t exterminate well enough but before the disaster, they had all lived together. Yasha had been the neatest of them, making her bed every morning and doing the dishes before anyone even had the chance to remind her it wasn’t her turn. She wouldn’t have stood for a place like this, dusty and empty and  _ sad.  _

It’s a house, not a home, but Beau isn’t sure she could recognize a home if she saw one. 

There’s nothing to do but wait, really, so Beau pulls out her phone and shoots Caleb a text:  _ ‘Place is empty so far. Any new intel.’ _

A moment later, her phone vibrates as a new text pops up, interrupting her game of Doodle Jump.  _ ‘No. If she is not there she may never be. Try not to get your hopes up, Beauregard.” _

She sighs and responds,  _ ‘I have a good feeling about this one’ _ even though she doesn’t. 

A moment later, he responds,  _ ‘Just be careful, ja?’ _

_ ‘When am I not?’  _ she says. 

She knows what he’s going to say before he says it, but it still feels like a punch to the gut when he replies  _ ‘When Yasha is involved.’ _ She knows, logically, that he’s right, that Yasha makes her forget her common sense and self-preservational skills and her years of Cobalt Soul training. If she hadn’t known before, the helicarrier certainly proved it. But she did know before, because she’s always known. 

Beau and Yasha, childhood friends, maybe lovers, roommates, partners in battle, the brain and the brawn, confidants and secret keepers, pulled apart and pushed back together over and over by the magnets of the universe, have always been each other’s weaknesses. 

The helicarrier shouldn’t have been surprising at all. 

Beau goes over to the fridge to see what Yasha ( _ maybe _ Yasha; she thinks of Caleb’s text) has to eat. It’s pretty disappointing: an unopened container of plain greek yogurt, a stick of butter in a plastic dish, a half empty jar of peanut butter, a to-go box Beau can only assume is full of leftovers. Gods, she misses Caduceus’s cooking so much. The months of searching have had their moments— spending lots of time with Jester and occasionally Fjord, going on hikes in the mountains when Nott decided they’d been working too hard, traveling in a car definitely not meant for six— but they’ve eaten far too much gas station food and Beau is desperate for a home cooked meal. 

Not just that: she misses home. At first, it had been all six of them, continuing the work of looking for Yasha that they had started before Soltryce dissolved. And it had been good, too: the trail had been relatively hot but skirmishes were few, there was enough money for good food and comfortable hotels, spirits were high. But after a few months of dead ends Caduceus got called back home, and two weeks after that Nott decided to go back to her family. The money had started to dry up and the leads got fewer and farther between, and Caleb left as well with a promise to keep looking for her as much as he could from behind his desk. (And he did, too. Not that Beau didn’t expect him to keep his promise, but he’d always been shifty and she’s nothing if not cautious. A lot of their best intel has been from him.)

After that it had just been Beau, Jester, and Fjord, which was surprising giving that Fjord had no love for Yasha. In fact, before they had all left he had taken every chance he could to remind them both that Yasha was a dangerous criminal and that she might not want to be found. But he had stuck with them anyways, and luckily too— he was incredibly charismatic and had guided the group out of multiple tricky situations. Even just the three of them, it was okay. Beau and Jester had each other’s backs, and Fjord watched out for both of them. They slept mostly in the van, and ate mostly from convenience stores, and whatever time they didn’t spend on the search they spent in cafes with free wifi and the Y for the gym and the showers. They laid low, taking two steps forward and one step back, and it worked out well. 

But all good things must come to an end (and isn’t  _ that  _ the story of Beau’s life) and eventually Fjord got a call from an old coworker asking for him back stateside. After that, it had seemed for a brief, tense week that the search was going to come to an end. It had been nearly seven months and in effect they had made no discernible progress. But it was  _ Yasha _ they were looking for, and if there was anyone that Beau and Jester would go to the end of the world for it would be her. So the week passed and the search continued and eventually they started picking up clues again. 

It hadn’t been bad. With only Jester there, sleeping in the van was kind of nice, and camping together was even better. Jessie’s ruthless optimism partnered with Beau’s pragmatic tenacity made a good team. And in firefights with the few remaining Scourgers that were scattered across the globe, there was practically no one Beau would rather have at her back. 

Beau slams the fridge shut, not in the mood for yogurt. Hopefully, when she gets back to their home on the road, Jester will have bought pastries. 

She waits for a few more minutes at the counter to no avail, silently watching the second hand on the clock trace its circles. She’s just drafting a text to Caleb ( _ ‘Still empty. Might have better luck coming back tonight- greater chance of someone being home’ _ ) when she hears the door unlock and creak open. The noise is quickly follow by a soft “fuck,” a thump of something heavy dropping to the floor, and a click. 

It’s now or never, Beau supposes. It’s either victory or another two months of searching. 

“Put your hands up where I can see them,” says a familiar weary voice, “and turn around slowly.”

Beauregard does as Yasha tells her. 

The first thing she notices about Yasha is her hands. They’re covered in scars, old and new— Beau knows because she and her friends probably put some of them there, and received some in return. They’re also shaking, holding on tight to the gun she’s currently pointing at Beauregard. Yasha’s hands didn’t always shake: when they were kids they were always there, steady, gentle, pulling Beau off the ground or rubbing her back or caressing her cheek softly. 

The second thing Beau notices is Yasha’s eyes. They’re still the same strange, multicolored pair, but they’ve lost the wildness that they glared into Beau with on the helicarrier just a year prior. There’s something softer about them, but colder than  _ before _ . And yet Beau swears she can see a spark of— confusion? Recognition? 

(Before Beau had left for Cobalt, back when they had been kids and not spies and soldiers, both of Yasha’s eyes had been a glorious electric blue. Whenever Yasha looked at her it sent shivers down Beau’s spine. “Blue’s my favorite color,” she had told Yasha once, but really it hadn’t been until she had fallen in love with gazing into those eyes that she had had a favorite color. 

When Beau, Jester, and Molly had rescued Yasha from the Angel of Irons cult that wanted her the first time, Beau had found her with one of her blue eyes an unnerving purple. 

“Yasha,” Beau said, so, so relieved when she entered the room her friend was being kept in, “I thought you were dead.” 

Yasha’s eyes fluttered open feverishly, and with a tone of unquestionable love she replied “I thought you were smaller.” It was true— although Beau was still dwarfed by Yasha in terms of height and size, she had muscles to rival a professional gymnast and the skill set to support it, thanks to her Cobalt Soul training. She rushed over to the gurney and tore off all of the restraints. Yasha still didn’t really move, though, tired from whatever strange drugs they had given her still coursing through her system. 

“Yeah, well,” Beau grunted, pulling Yasha up and draping her arm over Beau’s shoulder, “things have changed. I joined a spy organization, you got kidnapped by another.” She thought she heard Yasha laugh weakly at that. “Do you think you can stand?” 

Yasha blinked, slowly. “I… I don’t know. I think so.”

Carefully, Beau pulled Yasha off the gurney. When her feet hit the ground, she stumbled but then regained her footing. “That’s good,” Beau encouraged. “Come on, we have to go. Molly and Jester are waiting for us.”

“You all came,” Yasha said as they slowly made their way out of the room, putting much of her weight on Beau. Then, quieter, she murmured, “I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Of course we did, Yasha. We all love you so much,” Beau responded, straining to keep the pair of them upright and guide them in the right direction. She looked into Yasha’s eyes, then, foggy but noticeably different colored, and traced the lines of Yasha’s face down her neck and body. She was skinnier, Beau realized, gaunt and stretched out and  _ strange.  _ (They wouldn’t realize till later about her wings, how wrong they were, and Beau wouldn’t be able to stop blaming herself for not coming soon enough). “Oh, Yasha. What did they do to you?” 

“I don’t know,” Yasha said, her voice tight and raspy, “but you’re here now, so it’s okay.” 

Beau was silent. Distantly, she heard the sound of explosions going off, and sent and mental thank you to Jester for doing her job wonderfully. 

“You make things okay, Beau.” Yasha added. “My Beauregard, my beautiful Beauregard.”

“Okay, Yash,” Beau replied. “Whatever they put you on, it’s making you loopy.”

“No,” Yasha said, with a sudden intensity that made Beau look at her, afraid something was wrong. “I’m serious, Beau. Always.” And Beau wasn’t sure what Yasha was serious about, but it made her feel warm in her chest as she pulled the two of them towards the exit.)

“Yasha,” Beau says, hands up in a silent prayer that she’s not just imagining that her old friend recognizes her, “I didn’t think you were a big fan of guns.”

“I’m not,” Yasha replies. “But I can’t hide my sword on me when I go out to buy groceries.” 

“That’s always a struggle, yeah,” Beau responds. Then, hesitantly, she asks, “Yasha… do you recognize me?”

For a moment, Beau’s afraid that Yasha will say no. Or worse, that she’ll run. Beau’s afraid that the past year— more than that, even— will be for nothing and she’ll have to start all over again. Or, even worse than that, that Yasha will recognize her but won’t want to return with her. That they’ll have really lost her forever. But then Yasha speaks. “You are Beauregard.” 

Beau nods and slowly, carefully, lowers her hands. Yasha does not shoot. “Yeah, that’s me.” 

“I almost killed you back in Rexxentrum,” Yasha says, lowering the gun, putting the safety back on, and sliding it into her belt. 

“Almost,” Beau says, fighting the urge to tell her that she wasn’t trying to fight back, “but I forgive you. You saved me.”

Yasha looks at the ground guiltily. “I did not mean to. I do not… I don’t know why I did it.”

“Because we’re friends,” Beau says. “Because you were strong and you broke through.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Yasha laughs darkly, leaning down to pick up the bag of groceries she had dropped. As Beau watches, she brings them over to the counter near where she’s standing and starts unloading them. Rice. Spices. Cereal. Graham crackers. Orange juice. Wheat bread. Peppers. Normal things, human things. 

“Shit,” Yasha says, picking up a piece of fruit in her metal hand and squeezing it gently, “the plums are bruised.” And Beau almost has to laugh. 

“Sorry,” she says. 

“It’s alright. I just… wasn’t expecting a guest.” 

There’s quiet for a moment as Yasha unpacks her groceries, finding a familiar home for each thing. It’s practiced, easy; Beau realizes that she’s been here for a while. 

Beau also realizes that Jester is going to be so mad about this. Yesterday, Jester’s mom had called her and said she wanted to meet up with her. Jessie had been hesitant, but Beau convinced her otherwise. “Really, go see your mom,” she had said. “You deserve a break. Besides, I’m sure this is gonna be another dead end. Best case scenario she stayed here a couple of months ago.” So Jester had gone to see her mom for the day, and Beau had been made into a liar. 

Beau waits, not wanting to push Yasha anywhere that might mess this up. 

Finally,  _ finally,  _ Yasha closes the cabinet and pulls a chair out for herself at the scratched table next to the wall. Quietly, she says, “You’ve been following me.” 

“Yeah,” Beau replies, “You’re my friend. Of course I’ve been looking for you.”

“There used to be more of you, no?” Yasha says, worrying at a loose thread on her pants. “I didn’t recognize them, but…” She trails off, sounding unsure, and then she finds a name. “Jester was there?” 

“Yeah, she was,” Beau says. Suddenly, she feels like crying. She feels like screaming. She feels like going over and taking Yasha’s hands and pulling the other woman into a tight hug. But Yasha never loved physical contact even before everything, and Beau doubts she’d be comfortable with it now. “Yasha, how much do you remember?” 

Yasha looks away, thinking, remembering. She keeps her eyes on a spot on the ground for a long time, biting her lip just shy of hard enough to draw blood. “I don’t know,” she starts. Her voice is a hymn, a quiet confessional made only for Beau’s ears. “I remember bits and pieces. I’ll think I know how something happened and the next morning I’ll wake up and realize that I got it all wrong. From my time with the Angel of Irons, I remember doing bad things, horrible things. But… as often as I gained a memory of hurting someone they’d take one away.” She pauses, and Beau listens to her breathe. “Beauregard, I am not a good person. I have killed so many people. For myself. For them. Sometime, it felt like there was no difference. I do not know if… if I was in control or not. I just know that Obann told me to do something and I did it. And it hurt so much.”

For a moment, Beau hears Obann’s voice in her head. His evil, ugly taunts: “Your pal, your buddy, your  _ Yasha. _ ” He sealed it with a sneer of disgust and hatred and Beau thinks she doesn’t want to know what he did to her because whatever it was it was pure cruelty. But she has to, because it happened to Yasha and Beau needs to understand. 

“It’s not just from then that my memories are messed up. I remember that last mission and our… fight on the helicarrier. I don’t remember what you said, I just remember jumping after you and pulling you ashore. It was… important somehow. And I remember deciding to leave, because I wasn’t ready. But after that, it’s blank. I don’t know how long. Just that I went to sleep under a bridge in Rexxentrum and woke up in an inn in Asaurius with the symbol of the chains scratched off my arm and a half-full book of pressed flowers.”

At that, Beau nearly starts crying. When they had been younger, Yasha had been obsessed with pressing flowers. Molly had taught her how to do it: he’d given her a book on Etiquette and brought her to the fields near Beau’s house when he’d first moved in. When they found her in the cult base the book— more bloodstained than they had previously seen it— was in her pocket. And when she sacrificed herself so the group could escape, the book and ten years of collecting had gone up in flames with her. But this, this means that she’s  _ remembering _ . 

“My memories from before are messed up too. It’s mostly just darkness. But every so often I’ll remember something and write it down in my book. And when I forget it the next day I can just look and it’s always there. Like…” she pauses for a moment, thinking. “Jester’s mom’s name was Marrion. And we used to sneak Jes out the window to play hopscotch.”

Yasha stops, looking to Beau like she doesn’t know what to say. 

“Shit, Yash,” Beau says finally. 

“I just… do not know if you really want me back, Beauregard. I am not the woman you knew,” she says. “I am a coward and a horrible person.”

“No,” Beau replies, “you’re a survivor.” Because she won’t have her friends hating themselves for something they did to stay alive. 

“I killed Mollymauk,” Yasha says, and there it is. “I do not know how you can look at me and not see Molly’s killer. Storm Lord knows that is all I see when I look in the mirror.”

“Yasha—”

“I don’t remember much, but I remember that clear as day,” Yasha says, her face twisted and pained. “I remember his face as the life drained out of him. I know what blood looks like on lavender skin because of what I did to him. How can you forgive me?”

“Because I know you,” Beau responds, her voice raising almost of its own volition. “You’re not Orphan Maker, you’re not a ghost story, you’re not a nightmare, you’re  _ Yasha _ . I knew you before those demons did anything to you and I want to know you after because I love you!”

And shit. She wasn’t supposed to say that. 

(She’s only ever said it when Yasha couldn’t have heard: when they were kids, camping in the meadow and Yasha was fast asleep; when Beau was leaving for Cobalt Soul and the engine was loud enough to drown the words out; when she found Yasha unconscious in the guts of a cult base; as she fell from the helicarrier and saw Yasha’s form shrinking above her.)

“Even if I do come back,” Yasha says miserably, after a moment of silence. “What am I supposed to do? Maybe you forgive me, but I can’t see anyone else doing the same.” 

“My friends will.  _ Our _ friends will. They’ll protect you from anyone who tries to take you away,” Beau says, and despite the conflict their group had at its inception she doesn’t doubt it for a minute. 

“Your green friend,” Yasha says, “he hates me.” 

Beau sighs; she sees where that perception could come from, especially with Yasha’s limited interactions with Fjord. “He’s not, uh, the trusting type. He’s been betrayed before. And, well, you did try to kill him. But if I say he needs to trust you, I think he’ll do his best.”

Yasha sighs, rubs her forehead. “Beauregard, are you doing this because you think—” she starts, and then cuts off, staring at the door. “Did you hear that?” 

Beau listens. At first, it sounds like thunder and feels like an earthquake, the building moving and shaking beneath them. Then, Beau realizes it’s the sound of boots hitting the ground, hundreds of pairs running up the stairs in a unison drumbeat. The song heralds death. 

At the same time, a message from Caleb pops up on her phone. It reads,  _ ‘Schieße, we’ve been tracked. Ikithon is there. Run now B, with her or not.’ _

“It’s them,” Beau says, “It’s Ikithon. We have to go.”

Yasha’s eyes flash with terror and then seal with resolve, and she stands up, growing to her terrifying 6’4” form. Smoothly, scarily, she walks towards Beau like a hunter would its prey, and while Beau expects Yasha to go around her she doesn’t, barreling into her instead. Yasha knocks Beau to the ground and raises her metal arm, and Beau thinks  _ this is it.  _

She closes her eyes. The fist comes down. 

It misses her face, instead puncturing the floorboard next to her. From the compartment under the floor, Yasha pulls a bag and a small leather bound notebook. 

The footsteps get closer, louder, a crescendo of chaos and terror. And then the drumbeat stops, and it’s replaced by the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. Beau rolls over, shielding her face from the hail of bullets and wood chips and shards of glass. 

Yasha pulls her massive greatsword from under the floorboards and for a moment Beau is afraid again and then Yasha’s getting up, moving away, and the fear passes. Beau reminds herself that Yasha won’t hurt her, not again. 

Beau can barely hear her own thoughts over the roaring in her ears and the rattling of gunfire and the shattering of glass. There’s quiet for another moment and then comes the THUMP of a battering ram pounding against the door. It comes again, and again, and Beau can see the door giving under the pressure. 

“Are you coming,” Yasha shouts to her, and Beau shakes her confusion off for long enough to accept the hand that’s being offered out to her. 

From the hall, or maybe from their heads because who knows what kind of twisted magic Ikithon has and can fuck them up with, come a voice that sends a cold feeling into the back of her head. “Come out, come out, little Orphan Maker. We’ve missed you so much— have you forgotten that you’re ours?” 

Beau barely has a moment to take that in before she hears Yasha’s scream of frustration and anger and then she’s being pulled out of the window. 

For a moment, she’s flying. 

(She’s always wanted to fly.)

Then they’re landing on the opposite roof. Beau manages to go into a roll and come out standing up, ready in the balls of her feet. Yasha, on the other hand, lands directly on her shoulder and rolls over painfully. 

Beau looks towards the apartment they came from, 20 feet above. “Come on, Yasha,” she shouts, seeing soldiers clad in black robes swarming around the window. 

The other woman pushes herself up to her feet and then rushes past Beau, away, away, away. 

Beau follows. 

It’s the same dance they’ve been doing for months: Yasha running, Beau following her, desperately trying to catch up. 

It’s the same dance but there’s a new song, and Beau can’t wait to hear it. 

**Author's Note:**

> well it's been a while. this isn't something i've worked on in ages but i felt like posting it and i really hope you enjoy!!! i guess leave a comment if you want to hear more of this au? of course kudos comments and bookmarks are always appreciated. 
> 
> you can (please) come find me on twitter @kittyrachei or on tumblr @kittypryde


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